The big news breaking the Internets is that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast cancer charity, is pulling its grants from Planned Parenthood affiliates. The charity gave about $680,000 last year and $580,000 in 2010, which is mostly used to provide free breast exams for low-income women.

New details regarding the Blue Ash Airport deal have found that
Blue Ash will gain $2.25 million from the deal. The new details
means both Blue Ash and Cincinnati benefit from the deal by having
extra funds, potentially benefiting budgets without having to make cuts
or running to taxpayers for more money. The number also puts a damper on
COAST’s campaign to stop the new deal, which is spurred by their
extreme disapproval of all things streetcar.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted yesterday directed county
boards of election to set uniform in-person early voting hours. Before the decision, Democrats were accusing state
Republicans of extending early voting hours in predominantly Republican
districts and keeping early voting hours shorter in predominantly
Democratic districts. However, Democrats are still not pleased by the
new directive because they claim it’s limiting voting hours.

Supporters of redistricting reform now have a ballot issue to get
behind: Issue 2. Issue 2 is the redistricting amendment supported by
Voters First. If voters accept Issue 2, the redistricting process will
be placed in the hands of an independent citizens commission that will
be void of lobbyists and politicians. If voters reject Issue 2, the
process will continue being placed in the hands of politicians, who have
abused the system in a process known as “gerrymandering” to redraw
districts in politically beneficial ways. In the latest redistricting
process, the Republican-controlled committee redrew Cincinnati’s
district to include Warren County, giving Republicans more voters in the
district. CityBeat previously covered the redistricting issue at length here.

Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) are adjusting to new,
tougher academic standards. CPS Superintendent Mary Ronan says schools
will have to develop new methods of teaching and learning to comply with
the academic standards.

Democrats and Republicans clashed in court yesterday as
they argued over Ohio’s early voting rules. The debate focused on the
Saturday, Sunday and Monday before Election Day. Under current law, only
military personnel and their families are allowed to vote on those
days. The Democrats and President Barack Obama want everyone to be
allowed to vote on those days, and Republicans do not. The judge said he
will hold off on a decision.

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick, was at
Miami University yesterday. During his speech, Ryan did not shy away
from bringing up the Medicare issue, and he claimed Obamacare will cut
$716 billion. However, Ryan included the same cuts in his own budget plan,
and they’re actually savings, not cuts. The architect of Obamacare also
said recently that repealing Obamacare, which Romney and Ryan advocate,
would cut benefits to seniors.

Two Hamilton County commissioners are running unopposed in
what some suspect was part of a deal between Republicans and Democrats. Hamilton County Democratic Chairman Tim Burke says there was no deal.

U.S. House Republicans are freaking out over the Ryan pick. Apparently, they’re worried Democrats will bring
up the fact Ryan’s budget plan tried to end Medicare as most
Americans know it. House Speaker John Boehner tried to calm Republicans.

Scientists have discovered a galaxy that gives birth to more stars in a day than our galaxy does in a year.

Presumed GOP VP nominee to visit alma mater Miami Wednesday

The guest speaker at the office opening will be Butler
County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jocelyn Bucaro who, according to a
news release, will contrast the competing visions of President Barack
Obama and his presumptive Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

“The Romney-Ryan budget would devastate the security of
senior citizens — ending Medicare as we know it by turning the program
into a voucher system and privatizing Social Security,” the release
read.

Along with a Milford office which is also opening Tuesday, the Oxford office with contribute to the total of nine campaign offices in the region. The Obama campaign has offices in East Walnut Hills, College Hill, Forest Park, Cheviot, Middletown, Springboro and Mason.

Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Ryan will speak Wednesday evening at Miami
University’s Engineering Quad, according to the Miami College
Republicans’ Facebook page.

Ryan graduated from Miami in 1992 and was asked back as the commencement speaker in 2009.

In a reaction to economic sanctions pushed by the United States, Iran today stopped exporting oil to six European nations. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the nation would no longer sell oil to Greece, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. Also, he appeared on TV to announce that an underground bunker complex for uranium enrichment needed to create nuclear energy is now fully operational.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus held
a conference call with Ohio reporters Wednesday morning in response to
Tuesday comments by Democratic Vice President Joe Biden that the middle
class had been “buried” in the last four years.

“Obama and Biden have buried the middle class, and now they want to bury them some more,” Priebus told reporters.

“I mean, just imagine what Barack Obama would do. He
buried us economically in this country knowing that he would have to
face re-election. Just imagine what he would do with nothing but
daylight in front of him. Just imagine where this economy would go.”

Biden made his comments before an audience of about 1,000
in Charlotte on Tuesday. He said Republican presidential candidate Mitt
Romney’s tax cuts for millionaires would raise taxes for the middle
class.

“How can they justify raising classes on a middle class that has been buried the last four years?” Biden said.

Biden tried to clarify that he meant they had been buried by policies supported by Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.

Republicans, however, jumped on the comment immediately,
with Romney tweeting, “the middle class has been buried the last 4
years, which is why we need a change in November.”

Priebus said despite polling showing Obama pulling ahead
of Romney in Ohio that the state would be very close. He said
Republicans have a better ground game and would “crush” Democrats.

“I think we’re going to crush the Democrats on the ground,” Priebus said.

“I just don’t think they’ve got a very good ground game. I’ve looked through it, I’ve seen it. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

Priebus said if Romney were to lose Ohio, he was still optimistic about Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

“We’ve got it all on the table. Ohio is, of course,
extremely important. It’s nothing new, but I also see avenues to 270
(electoral votes) opening up for Mitt Romney in places that weren’t
there in ’08.”

Just days after his abrupt firing by MSNBC, some progressive activists and politicians are pushing for Keith Olbermann to run for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat.

Overtures are being made to convince Olbermann to run for the seat being vacated by the retiring Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Olbermann, 51, is a New York City native but has lived in Connecticut before.

Local Republicans criticize president's record on deficit in counter-rally

President Barack Obama announced a new trade action
against China during a Cincinnati campaign stop on Monday, where he also
took the opportunity to attack Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

The U.S. filed the case at the World Trade Organization on
Monday and claims that China offers “extensive subsidies” to native
automakers and auto-parts producers.

The Chinese government filed its own complaint before the
WTO on Monday, challenging tariffs the U.S. imposes on Chinese products
ranging from steel to tires. The tariffs are meant to protect American
manufacturers against what the U.S. government claims are unfair trade
practices by China.

“(The U.S. action is) against illegal subsidies that
encourage companies to ship auto part manufacturing jobs overseas,”
Obama said before an estimated crowd of 4,500 at the Seasongood Pavilion
in Eden Park. “These are subsidies that directly harm working men and
women on the assembly lines in Ohio and Michigan and across the
Midwest.”

“It’s not right, it’s against the rules, and we will not let it stand. American
workers build better products than anyone. ‘Made in America’ means
something. And when the playing field is level, America will always
win.”

Obama went on to criticize his Republican challenger,
saying Romney made his fortune in part by uprooting American jobs and
shipping them to China. Obama accused Romney — who has criticized
Obama’s foreign policy, saying the president apologizes for American
interests — of talking the talk without being able to walk the walk.

The Romney campaign countered with an email after the
rally, saying that Obama’s economic policies were hurting the private
sector and harmed manufacturing.

“As president, Mitt Romney will deliver a fresh start for
manufacturers by promoting trade that works for America and fiscal
policies that encourage investment, hiring and growth.”

The email pointed to reports from Bloomberg finding that manufacturing and production have shrunk recently.

Before the Obama rally several Ohio Republicans held a
news conference behind a Romney campaign bus near Eden Park, where they
focused more on the deficit than foreign trade.

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot said it was “laughable” that
Obama considers himself a budget hawk. He pointed to the decline in
budget negotiations between the president and the Republican-controlled
House of Representatives, saying Obama “walked away” from talks with
Speaker John Boehner.

“Basically as president from that time last August until now, it’s been all politics,” Chabot said.

Chabot also attacked Obama on foreign policy, claiming the
president has left Israel hanging in the Middle East and is not serious
with Iran, who he says is on the brink of getting nuclear weapons.

The president in his speech said he did have a plan to
reduce the federal deficit, and would reduce it by $4 trillion over the
next 10 years without raising taxes on the middle class.

Monday’s visit to Cincinnati was Obama’s second of this
campaign and his 12th trip to Ohio this year. Romney has visited the
state 18 times during his campaign.

Obama was scheduled to fly to Columbus Monday afternoon for a campaign appearance there.

Leaders of the nonprofit Music Hall Revitalization Co.
seemed to have compromised last week when the group proposed a 99-year lease of
Music Hall as part of a $165 million renovation. But the lease included a
clause that would allow the group to acquire the historic building for $1 at
the end of the lease or at the end of a second 99-year lease. The permanent
sale of the building is what held up the initial plan to turn the renovation
over to the nonprofit group, which says its donors will not offer the financial
support without the city turning over ownership. Mayor Mark Mallory told The
Enquirer that the proposal will not be approved. “I don’t care if it’s 99 years, 198 years, 500 years or
1,000 years, the city should always retain ownership,” Mallory said. “That
should never change.”

The
George W. Bush Presidential Library denied a request by a Democratic super PAC
for documents related to Sen. Rob Portman’s work in the George W. Bush
administration. The library says it is not subject to the Freedom of
Information Act and that all are welcome to see the documents in 2014. The
super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, has been researching GOP candidates as
Mitt Romney moves closer to choosing a running mate.

“When
you look at the roster of V.P. candidates, each of them is significantly
flawed,” American Bridge senior adviser Ty Matsdorf said in a statement. “For
Portman, it is his calamitous record on fiscal issues while working at the Bush
White House. It shouldn’t be a shock that he is going to want to keep that
under wraps for as long as possible, but unfortunately it’s pretty hard to hide
a record as terrible as that.”

Facebook has created a new “find friends nearby” function
that will allow users to see friends and people they don’t know who are at
events or social gatherings. From some Facebook engineer’s comments on the
story:

I built Find Friends Nearby with another engineer for a
hackathon project. While it was originally called ‘Friendshake’, we
settled on ‘Find Friends Nearby’ for launch (the URL was a little bit of
a homage to the previous iteration).

For me, the ideal use case for this product is the one
where when you’re out with a group of people whom you’ve recently met
and want to stay in contact with. Facebook search might be effective, or
sharing your vanity addresses or business cards, but this tool provides
a really easy way to exchange contact information with multiple people
with minimal friction.

Some Columbia-Tusculum residents are
upset about the proposed design of new apartment buildings on the
corner of Delta Avenue and Columbia Parkway. The 76-unit Delta Flats'
design was apparently supposed to fit into the nearby business
district, which includes the Precinct restaurant.

HBO and showrunners for its new
medieval show Game of Thrones have apologized for using Bush's head
on a stake in a scene where one of the dudes shows someone a line of
traitors' heads on stakes.

Surgeons replaced a 10-year-old girl's
has blood vessel with one grown with her own stem cells. The vein was
taken from a dead person, stripped of its cells and then coated in
the girls' stem cells. Doctors says there has been a “striking”
improvement in her quality of life, according to the BBC.

The wife of an Israeli diplomat in India and her driver were injured Monday when the car they were traveling in was bombed, while another bomb was defused outside an Israeli embassy in Tblisi, Georgia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran, which he called “the greatest exporter of terror in the world.”